The BEAUTIFUL (2026)
Song Cycle for Tenor and PIano

Movements:
1. The Way We Meet (Margaret Noodin)
2. Chicago (Carl Sandburg)
3. The Beautiful (Tsitsi Ella Jaji)
4. Tropics in New York (Claude McKay)
5. Mending (Tsitsi Ella Jaji)

Duration: 20 minutes
Premiere: July 25, 2026 at Tanglewood Music Center by Nicholas Phan and Myra Huang

Commissioned by Music Accord, Inc. for tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang, The Beautiful is a five-movement song cycle that explores the unfinished idea of America through the lenses of migration, memory, labor, and identity. Setting texts by poets Margaret Noodin, Carl Sandburg, Tsitsi Jaji, and Claude McKay, the work journeys from the muscular grit of the American city to intimate moments of displacement, longing, and everyday connection. Rather than offering an idealized portrait of a nation, the cycle frames citizenship as a relational act—one forged through presence, shared responsibility, and small acts of care. It closes on a quiet, poignant note of repair, leaving us with the image of a country not as something fully resolved, but as something continuously worn and worthy of our tending.

UNDER EXCLUSIVITY UNTIL AUGUST 1, 2028